Do school-based mindfulness programs reduce mental health problems?

Research suggests that school-based mindfulness programs can help students manage stress, but do not significantly reduce student mental health problems.

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Highlights

• The popularity of school-based mindfulness programs has been on the rise in recent years. Yet the precise benefits of school-based mindfulness programs have been unclear.

• We examine recent findings from some of the larger, more scientifically robust studies of school-based mindfulness interventions.

• Studies collectively suggest that school-based mindfulness activities can help students manage stress, but they have little to no impact on alleviating student depression or other serious mental health conditions.

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Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in school-based mindfulness programs. Partly driven by concerns about declining student mental health, as highlighted by Lucariello (2023), mindfulness interventions show promise in teaching students emotional self-awareness and self-regulation. Mindfulness techniques have been introduced at all levels of schooling, from early childhood education to higher education. Sometimes students learn about mindfulness from a single interested teacher, while in other cases, entire schools have made a commitment to mindful practices in their classrooms. Through such initiatives, educators hope that students will become more emotionally self-aware and capable of monitoring their own stress levels, ultimately fostering improved social and emotional well-being.

The explosion of interest in school-based mindfulness has coincided with a notable increase in educational research papers on the topic. While many of these studies report positive findings, the precise benefits of school-based mindfulness remain unclear. The research landscape is marked by a large number of studies of varying quality and, in some cases, questionable rigor. Moreover, the growing enthusiasm for school-based mindfulness sparks concerns about the possibility of researcher bias. This raises critical questions: What do the most thorough and well-conducted studies tell us about the effectiveness of school-based mindfulness programs? Are mindfulness programs truly effective in helping students cope with stress? Can they contribute to reducing mental health issues? In this article, we delve into the findings of some of the more credible and robust scientific studies to more clearly understand the impact of mindfulness in schools.

Study 1: MYRIAD (My Resilience in Adolescence)

The first of these studies is the MYRIAD (My Resilience in Adolescence) project (Kuyken et al., 2022). MYRIAD is the largest experimental study of school-based mindfulness programs to-date. The research focused on efforts to improve the mental health and well-being of early teens, aged 11 to 14. The study took the form of a parallel group, cluster-randomised controlled trial involving 84 schools and 6,300 students in the United Kingdom over a three-year period. It was a huge study. Each of the 84 schools was randomly assigned to either the experimental condition (mindfulness) or control condition (teaching-as-usual). Teachers in the experimental schools were provided with training and periodically observed by independent assessors to ensure fidelity to proper pedagogies. Schools in the control and experimental condition were equivalent in terms of representing the full spectrum of locations, ethnicities and socio-economic differences across the United Kingdom.

The MYRIAD research examined a large number of variables associated with mindfulness interventions, including risk for depression, social-emotional-behavioral functioning, and well-being. It is important to recognize that MYRIAD was primarily focused on the impact of mindfulness on student mental health outcomes, rather than using mindfulness for relaxation and stress management.

MYRIAD failed to find any evidence that school-based mindfulness programs were of benefit to young people’s mental health. The lead researcher, Professor Willem Kuyken, explained that mental health problems can be caused by a large number of factors, such as poverty, inequity, and deprivation. Kuyken argued that teachers and schools are not equipped to treat these kinds of problems, nor is mindfulness a sufficient remedy. Students who are suffering from depression and/or anxiety need support and treatment from trained mental health professionals.

Study 2: Meta-analysis on Mindfulness-Based Interventions

The second study, conducted by Fulambarker et al. (2022), is a meta-analysis of mindfulness-based interventions with adolescent students aged 12-18. The research synthesized nine high-quality studies, all employing randomized control trials, to test the impact of school-based mindfulness-based interventions on students’ experiences of stress, depression and anxiety. Some of these studies had active control groups, in which the mindfulness interventions were compared against other activities designed to promote well-being, such as yoga or other relaxation techniques. Other studies had inactive control groups which means that mindfulness conditions were compared against standard teaching practices (i.e., teaching-as-usual).

The nine studies included in the meta-analysis collectively examined the impact of mindfulness interventions on the stress, depression and anxiety levels of 5046 students. The analysis concluded that mindfulness training effectively reduces stress in students compared to teaching-as-usual. However, it found no evidence that mindfulness training decreases student anxiety or depression. Furthermore, the stress-reducing benefits of mindfulness training were comparable to those achieved through alternative relaxation practices, such as yoga.

Study 3: A Systemic Review of Mindfulness-Based School Interventions

The third study, conducted by Phan et al. (2022), is a systemic review of the literature focusing on 77 studies of mindfulness-based school interventions. In this review, coders assigned a quality rating to each study. Higher scores were assigned to studies that had large sample sizes, low risk of bias, effectiveness mindfulness training for teachers, extended exposure to mindfulness interventions (e.g., 12 months or longer) and high participant attendance.

Through the coding process, eleven of the studies were rated as “A Grade” studies. These top-rated studies found positive associations between school-based mindfulness interventions and enhanced student resilience to stress. However, they failed to find any benefits in reducing depression. Additionally, the relationship between mindfulness and student sense of well-being was inconclusive. While some “A Grade” studies reported a positive effect, others found no significant differences.

Conclusions

One of the strengths of these three papers is the authors’ emphasis on well-structured experiments involving large numbers of participants and a minimal risk of bias. The studies collectively suggest that mindfulness activities can help students manage stress, although the second study indicates that other activities might be equally beneficial in this regard. Mindfulness appears to have good utility for helping students cope with some of the everyday pressures of school life. Thus, teaching students about mindfulness is recommended, assuming it’s doesn’t consume too much school time or displace other valuable educational activities. At the same time, it’s important to emphasize that the benefits of mindfulness are limited. There is little evidence that mindfulness can alleviate mental health issues. It will not, on its own, solve the challenges that teachers and schools are currently experiencing with declining levels of student mental health.

Many thanks to Paul Kirschner for his posts on X (Twitter) that alerted us to the MYRIAD findings.

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References

Fulambarkar, N., Seo, B., Testerman, A., Rees, M., Bausback, K., & Bunge, E. (2022). Review: Meta-analysis on mindfulness-based interventions for adolescents’ stress, depression, and anxiety in school settings: A cautionary tale. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 28(2), 307-317.

Kuyken W, Ball S, Crane C, et al. (2022). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of universal school-based mindfulness training compared with normal school provision in reducing risk of mental health problems and promoting well-being in adolescence: the MYRIAD cluster randomised controlled trial. Evidence-Based Mental Health, 25, 99–109.

Lucariello, K. (2023). Student mental health in decline during 2022-2023 school year. T.H.E. Journal, 03/21/23.

Phan, M. L., Renshaw, T. L., Caramanico, J., Greeson, J. M., MacKenzie, E., Atkinson-Diaz, Z., Doppelt, N., Tai, H., Mandell, D. S., & Nuske, H. J. (2022). Mindfulness-based school Interventions: A systematic review of outcome evidence quality by study design. Mindfulness, 13, 1591–1613.